No one does
everything that the Bible commands them to do.
This has nothing to do with being sinful (though, of
course, our
sinfulness does cause us to fall short at times), rather it has to
do with how
we interact with scripture.
For
example, Romans 16:16 says, “Greet one another with a holy kiss”. I do not know anyone who does
this. In fact, in our day
and age, uninvited
kissing may get you charged with harassment.
Therefore, we have changed this command so that it includes
a “holy
handshake”.
Sometimes
we follow scriptural examples to the letter of the law and other
times we
ignore them completely. For
example, in
Matthew 26, Jesus starts what we call “The Lord’s Supper”. He takes bread, blesses it
and tells his
followers to remember his body that was to be sacrificed on the
cross (verse
26). Then he takes a cup,
blesses it and
tells the disciples to drink it and remember his blood (verse 27). In some form or another, most
Christians take
those examples seriously and continue to follow them to this day. However, the end of that
paragraph says,
“When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives”
(verse
30). Many churches sing a
hymn after the
Lord’s table, but no one suggests that we must then fly to
Jerusalem and climb
the Mount of Olives. We
completely ignore
that part of the example.
Of
course, those are silly examples but they make the point that
scripture is not
always as “cut and dried” as we would like it to be. However, that is a good
thing! Interacting with
God’s word ought to make us
to think and ask questions like, “How does this apply today?” or, “What does this verse
require me to do?” Scripture
comes alive, not when we read it,
but when we wrestle with it.
As
this
new year begins, may I encourage you to dig into the word of God.
It may not always be easy,
but I promise that your
effort will be rewarded.
“Do your best to
present yourself
to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed
and who
correctly handles the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15)
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